The present invention relates to information systems for use by travelers and in particular to an information system which provides the user with an indication the crime risk of a particular location.
GPS and other navigation systems for portable use may contain digital maps of specific areas and may superimpose a user's location determined by the GPS on a graphical representation of the map. While the maps used in GPS systems currently are relatively static, it is also known to provide an ability to download updated or new maps with the GPS system to keep the loaded map system current, to load new maps for new areas or use wireless or cellular technology to exchange map information. The maps may include points of interest, restaurants, and other data likely to be useful to the traveler.
Such systems are in particular demand by users who are unfamiliar with the roads in an area, and for this reason are particularly attractive to travelers and offered as a feature in rental cars. A traveler with a GPS system and an updated map, however, may have a false sense of security based on a knowledge of his or her location on the map but an ignorance about the safety of that location. For this reason, it has been proposed to provide a map overlay or the like indicating a risk of crime in the user's location as displayed on the GPS system. One such system is described in PCT application PCT/US2008/061482 claiming a priority date of Nov. 26, 2007 and entitled: “Mobile Navigation System with Graphic Crime-Risk Display” hereby incorporated by reference.
A potential barrier to providing crime risk information to travelers and the like is in obtaining accurate crime data. While many municipalities by law must make such data available, the information is not always presented in a form that may be readily collected and disseminated to the public. Communities often have mixed incentive to accurately report crime and many communities provide no such reporting.
The above referenced patent application describes using non-crime data such as population density, average income, density of government buildings and police stations and the like to supplement actual crime data. Such proxy data is imperfect and additional or superior proxy data would therefore be desirable.